Artist Vs. Poet

Current Lineup: Joe Kirkland - Guitar, Lead Vocals Jason Dean - Bass Dylan Stevens - Guitar, Back-Up Vocals Former Members: Craig Calloway - Guitar, Back-Up Vocals Tarcy Thomason - Vocals Joe Westbrook - Drummer Everyone has a favorite fix: that one thing that gets the blood coursing through your veins and the endorphins firing in your brain. For Artist Vs Poet, that fix is music. Their debut album Favorite Fix, released on March 2nd, 2010, is aptly named...

Current Lineup: Joe Kirkland - Guitar, Lead Vocals Jason Dean - Bass Dylan Stevens - Guitar, Back-Up Vocals Former Members: Craig Calloway - Guitar, Back-Up Vocals Tarcy Thomason - Vocals Joe Westbrook - Drummer Everyone has a favorite fix: that one thing that gets the blood coursing through your veins and the endorphins firing in your brain. For Artist Vs Poet, that fix is music. Their debut album Favorite Fix, released on March 2nd, 2010, is aptly named, as it features each member’s individual passion: creativity and love for music taking shape in the form of upbeat songs that will inevitably become their fans’ favorite fix, too. Produced by Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount (All Time Low, Mayday Parade, Cartel) along with Mike Green (Paramore, Breathe Carolina), Favorite Fix contains twelve undeniably catchy, uber-melodic tunes, including the title track from the Damn Rough Night EP.

Enlisting the help of Forever The Sickest Kids’ Austin Bello, whose vocals are featured on “Damn Rough Night”, and The Maine’s John O, who collaborated on first track “Car Crash”, the album has been given a new dimension. In the fall of 2007, singer Tarcy Thomason sat in his Dallas, Tex. home and realized he missed making music. Thompson posted a MySpace bulletin, asking to get together and jam with other musicians. When former guitarist Craig Calloway responded, the two hit the studio, bringing in Joe Westbrook on drums.

They started playing local shows, gaining bass player Jason Dean and completing their line up after discovering guitarist Joe Kirkland on YouTube. Artist Vs Poet was born, and didn’t waste time in getting on the radar of the industry. Just a year after forming, the band was snatched up by Fearless Records, who released their acclaimed debut eponymous EP in November 2008. The band quickly captured the hearts of a fast-growing army of fans, gaining 3 million total plays and 50,000 friends on MySpace, and the EP going on to sell over 12,000 copies.

The media soon followed in backing the band, with Alternative Press naming them one of their 100 Bands You Need to Know, while their video for “Runaway” won MTVU’s ‘Freshman 5’, and their songs were featured on MTV’s The Real World and Parental Control. The band released their second EP Damn Rough Night while on tour with Forever The Sickest Kids and The Rocket Summer in December 2009. Alternative Press noted: “The four ultra-catchy songs on this EP offer irrefutable evidence that it is possible to write quality, radio ready pop-rock songs in 2009”. The EP hit #9 on the iTunes Alternative Chart, and #98 on the overall chart.

The band has already toured the U.S. with The Maine and We The Kings in support of Favorite Fix, and spent a full summer on Vans Warped Tour. Artist vs Poet joined Mayday Parade along with labelmates Breathe Carolina, Every Avenue and Go Radio on the Fearless Friends tour in fall 2010. After contributing the smash cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” to 2010 compilation Punk Goes Pop 3, the band is back in writing mode for their follow-up to Favorite Fix. After the Fearless Friends tour, Tarcy Thomason and Joe Westbrook quit. Tarcy wanted to be with his wife and child and Joe Westbrook wanted to go back to school to create films.

Joe Kirkland and Jason Dean wern't ready to settle down, they made "A Thousand Miles" cover of Vanessa Carlton. They met Dylan Stevens previously from A Bird, A Sparrow and Carawae (many others) and made a remade "Adorable" which was previously sung by Thomason as well as various cover songs such as "Riding Solo" by Jason Derulo, "Mean" by Taylor Swift, and "Super Bass" by Nicki Minaj. They went on stickam and preformed "Break" for the first time. For christmas 2011 they made a EP called "Naughty & Nice" which featured "Brick" by Ben Folds, "Happy Holidays, You Bastard" by Blink-182, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" by Judy Garland, "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" by N'SYNC, their own "Airplanes And Candy Canes, and a bonus track "Never Enough".

They were supposed to preform on Not So Unsilent Night but their recording clashed with the dates and they had to cancel. Fearless Records dropped them and Sparks The Rescue because of "crucial members" leaving but Artist Vs Poet say that they "feel free" now. They now are working on a full legth cd and 2 EP's. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..